So the next phase of labor, when the epidural had me pain-free and I was just hanging out and dilating, was the Golden Phase of labor. Nate and I just got to chat and enjoy each other's company, and everything was very calm and peaceful. Around 11:30 my OB checked my progress (painless! epidural!) and I was fully dilated! Woo-hoo!
So here's a little more explanation... with Maddy, I was totally numb, and not long after I was fully dilated the nurses coached me on pushing, and I pushed her out in 11 minutes. I also had a pretty bad tear (3rd degree), which wasn't hard to recover from in the short-term, but left me with some problems in the long term. So I did a lot of research before this labor, and decided that I wanted to try a few things differently to prevent tearing. This time around, I put in my birth plan that I wanted to wait to push after I was fully dilated until I felt pressure- even with an epidural, the force of contractions will continue to push the baby down, and sometimes you can feel pressure even when you're too numb to feel pain. So I wanted to not have coached pushing- just push when I felt the urge- and try pushing in some position where gravity could help, like hands and knees, or squatting... these are things that help prevent the tearing. Ask Dr. Google, she'll tell you all about it...
Okay, I have GOT to stop beginning every paragraph with "so."
Then!
Around 12:30 my mom got there, and Nate's mom showed up at some point too (I have no idea when!) and our assorted siblings and fathers hung out in the waiting room and took care of Madelaine. I asked one of the nurses (Lindsay! My hero!) if I could try different positions, and she said "what did you have in mind?" and I said anything more upright, so that gravity would help. Hospitals tend to be REALLY cautious when you have an epidural, since they don't want you to fall out of bed or something, but Lindsay was super cool and helped me get into a kneeling position, where I could lean on the upper part of the bed. So I stayed like that for awhile, even though it wasn't super comfortable, but it didn't seem to help much in terms of getting the baby's head to descend. At that point I started to get more uncomfortable, and the Golden Phase of labor began to come to a close...
So*, pressure. I was feeling pressure. And the pressure got more uncomfortable. So I decided to push the epidural button again for more medicine- I hadn't pushed the button since 10 am, and it was now maybe 1:30? Repeat dry heaving, only this time I actually threw up a little bit. Then the nurses said that I needed to get out of hands and knees position, because the baby's heart rate monitor kept slipping and they would lose the signal. So I tried lying on my side. I had been doing little wimpy pushes occasionally for awhile, when I felt pressure, but I certainly hadn't felt like I HAD to push yet... but now I started kind of pushing for real, while Nate held my leg. The pressure! It was VERY UNCOMFORTABLE! And the button-pushing! Was not helping! Hadn't my friend warned me about this?!?
Eventually the OB came in, (oh I forgot to mention- I actually agreed to let her break my water earlier, to try to move things along, once I was fully dilated and it was clear the baby would be here soon anyway- ) and the nurses said the monitor was still slipping (and also the baby's heart rate was dropping a bit?) so they wanted me to lie on my back? So I ended up on my back with my feet supported. Sigh...
And then I pushed the baby out. I was pretty vocal... Charlotte was born at 2:31. And she was beautiful. :-)
*I said I would stop, didn't I? Didn't I?? Oh, the addiction of the so. So!
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